Proper Vehicular Manners
by TimeAsunderQ
Summary: What happens when a crime scene is an hour away from Vegas? ROAD TRIP! Three CSIs and one detective in a Tahoe, and two of those CSIs won't behave...


**Author's Note:** What happens when Las Vegas' finest are called to a crime scene an hour away? ROAD TRIP!!!! Even a mother's patience can be tested to its limits. Rated PG on the simple principle of having Catherine, Brass, Nick and Sara in a car together. Set somewhere in the second season, whenever they had Tahoe's. Fic makes reference to the Season 2 story "Ellie." The rest of the fic makes little reference to anything else, including sanity.

Proper Vehicular Manners

Mesquite, Nevada. On the furthest edges of Clark County off I-15, a group of bodies were found partially buried in the brush. They may never have been found were it not for roving coyotes. A single wily coyote had dug up a body, gnawed off a limb, and dragged it a fair distance from the dump site. Eventually the coyote was spotted near a residential area with half a leg hanging out of its mouth. "Concerned citizens" called it in.

DNA lifted from the chewed-upon leg matched it to a missing casino employee: one Brian Dulcee of the Bellagio, missing for almost 3 weeks.

Those were the circumstances that created the current scenario. Catherine had drawn the short straw and was thus driving her Tahoe to Mesquite, an hour's travel one-way. Brass was stretched out in her passenger seat, with Sara sitting behind him and Nick behind Catherine.

For the first five minutes the vehicle had moved along quietly, Brass asking everyone about their day and how new cases were going. Sara explained an interesting case she and Grissom had been working on (using forensic entomology) when she was pulled away for this mass exhumation.

After fifteen minutes, though, the silence was getting to be uncomfortable.

Brass shifted in his seat. "May I turn on the radio, Cath?"

She nodded. "Sure Jim, find some good driving music for me."

The first thing that came on was classical music.

Catherine laughed. "Hey, I normally love classical but... No no, that'll put me to sleep!" She had stayed up during the day to play with Lindsey, and that left her drained that night on shift.

Brass hit the scan button again. This time it landed on rap. Catherine and Brass just looked at each other. Their eyes connected for a moment then parted. He hit the button again.

After cycling through two classical music channels, two playing bubblegum pop (as Nick had called Hillary Duff), and four rap stations, Brass quit trying.

The detective held up his hands in defeat. "Sorry Catherine, looks like Clark County is all out of good driving music."

"Looks like it..."

After a long pause of tense silence, those in the front seat heard a hushed giggling from the backseat.

"Hey you two, I've done my share of carpools enough to know when something's up. What's going on?"

Her rearview mirror was situated to look straight down the middle, where she couldn't catch either one of them in it.

"Nothing. Nothing!" Two innocent voices chimed.

"PUNCH BUGGY NO PUNCH BACKS!" Sara yelled, socking Nick in the arm.

"What? There are no----"

"Yes there was! It was yellow, heading towards Vegas!"

He swiveled in his seat, craning his neck to try and find the yellow VW bug in question.

"Made ya look..." Sara was smirking, one side of her mouth crooked up in the barest form a smile.

Nick shook his finger at her. "Hey, now that's not fair. I have every right to investigate if I think you've gypped me in punch buggy."

"Brass! Nick's touching me!" she shouted in a tattletale tone.

Brass found himself coloring red, even though he knew what she meant. In an authoritative voice he responded "Nick, stop touching Sara."

"I'm not _touching_ Sara!" True to form, his finger was half a foot from her face, but he closed in to the point he was mere millimeters from her arm, causing her to pull away as far as she could against the rear passenger side door.

Sara was openly grinning now. "Nick's not touching me!" she yelled back.

Catherine sighed, gripping the wheel more tightly. Nothing like in-car entertainment, she thought dryly. Clearing her throat, she spoke up loudly posing the age-old rhetorical question. "You two, do I have to pull this Tahoe over????"

"Nooooo!" they chorused, settling down.

The vehicle was silent for a few more minutes of grace. Then, Sara announced matter-of-factly, "I have to use the bathroom."

"Me too!" Nick quickly threw in.

"And I want some peanuts."

"Me too!" He sat forward to press his point.

Sara twirled to glare at her fellow CSI. "Shut up Nick, I know you don't like peanuts."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

With each second they were getting closer to each other until they were nose to nose, making the worst faces they could to try and intimidate the competition.

Now _that_ Catherine could see and she gaped at how childish they were being (at 30 years old! Sheesh!). Brass sighed. "Catherine, let me take care of this."

Brass leaned back out of his chair into the aisle, turning to look at Sara and Nick.

"Ok kids. Here's the deal. Sara, you know you don't have to use the bathroom." He held out a menacing finger when she opened her mouth in rebuttal. "No, you don't. And neither do you Nick." Nick simply nodded, knowing better than to argue. "So, if both of you shut up long enough for us to make it to the crime scene, dust off a few bodies, search for evidence, and get them loaded into the coroner's van, then I'll buy both of you ice cream when we get back in town."

"Yay ice cream! Alright!" they cried in unison.

Sara cleared her throat. "Thank you Uncle Brass!"

He started to reply, but closed his mouth. All the things that ran through his mind were too inappropriate for the situation (uncle? No, I'm your daddy!") Brass laughed at the thought.

True to their word, both Nick and Sara were silent for the rest of the journey, allowing Brass and Catherine to talk briefly about Lindsey and how she was doing. Brass liked seeing Lindsey; he saw his closeness to her as a possible redemption from the pain of Ellie. He had let his own daughter go through life without him, so Brass wouldn't let Lindsey go through her life without a solid father figure. While Grissom also looked after her, a little girl could never have too many trustworthy adults in her life.

"Are we there yet?" Nick's voice broke through his rambling thoughts.

"No Nick... we're not quite---"

Catherine yelled, pointing out of the SUV at a road sign by the edge of I-15.

"Mesquite, Nevada! Thank God, we're here!"

The vehicle swerved smoothly onto the off ramp, exiting the melee of cars on the interstate.

Brass smiled. "Nix that Nicky. We're here."

"Great, cause... I _really_ have to use the bathroom." Sara remarked sarcastically, informing Brass that his earlier statement had been incorrect.

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One convenience store stop later, all three CSIs and one LVPD detective were standing near the burial site. Brass followed the Mesquite police officers over to the witness who found the leg initially. Nick started work carefully digging up the rest of poor Brian Dulcee, whose torn left leg and right arm were exposed to the elements. Sara and Catherine worked out an assembly line for sifting through the sand, looking for any solid evidence such as cigarette butts or personal effects.

All was quiet during this investigation time. Each CSI sat engrossed in their own thoughts, engaged in the menial task of moving and searching through dirt.

"Hey Cath, can I drive home?" Nick posed the question while gently brushing off an arm.

Catherine looked at Nick blankly, stopping shaking the sift pan. "Why?"

He never looked up but grinned just the same. "Well, the ride here was pretty boring..."

THE END

**Author's Note:** Okay, so this was one of those silly things you played out in your head at, say, 4 o'clock in the morning when you're studying for a Thermodynamics 2 test and you can't cram any more power cycles into your brain.

**Teaser:** I've written a lengthy Halloween story and am going to post it Friday night so it'll hit by Halloween for sure. Title will be "Halloween Party of Doom" and it is serious GSR. So be on the lookout for that!!!


End file.
